Since launching their first beers way back in 1989, Grand Ridge have seen off many challenges to have hit the local beer industry. Indeed, the regional Victorian brewery helmed by Eric Walters – one of the original co-founders who took sole ownership of the business in 1997 – is the state’s oldest independent operation by some distance.
However, as with many of their peers, the current economic malaise has claimed Grand Ridge too, with Eric (pictured above) now hoping to sell the business.
The brewing company appointed Richard Lawrence and Mitchell Ball of Mackay Goodwin as administrators on March 25, becoming the eighth independent brewery in Australia we know of to enter voluntary administration in the first quarter of the year.
The Crafty Pint has been told: “The decision to appoint administrators was taken as a result of financial pressures dating from the pandemic, along with rapidly rising costs and increasing taxes. It has become imperative to restructure the business via voluntary administration.
“For the foreseeable future, it will be business as usual, brewing and selling beer and cider. The taphouse and restaurant will remain open. The company also hopes to retain as many staff as…